


Rain Butterfly

by SmallGiantsKing910



Series: Butterfly [1]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Reread and edited 2019, Sick Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-04-23
Updated: 2007-04-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 14:05:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17530115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmallGiantsKing910/pseuds/SmallGiantsKing910
Summary: Uryuu was quietly walking around the city, when he noticed Ichigo on the riverbank. The latter is acting weird, probably a fever?





	Rain Butterfly

On a peaceful afternoon, Uryuu was walking aimlessly around, enjoying the warmth of the spring sun. Aimlessly, that was exactly what he wanted; he liked to walk around the city during sunny days, and even rainy days, without any real purpose or any place to go; but his feet would always drag him unconsciously in front of the same place. Always. Or rather, they were unconsciously attracted by some powerful energy in this same city. An energy that was like a human black hole, drawing everyone’s attention on itself, and especially those with a higher-than-normal, asleep or not, energy. Uryuu was no exception. He was quite sensitive to that reiatsu, sensitive to its ups and downs, sensitive to its quiet buzzing, sensitive to its invisible colour. Which had made him also grow sensitive to this special energy’s special host.

Thus, on days like this one, if the owner of the energy had rather strong feelings, positive or negative ones – the latter unfortunately happening more often – Uryuu would find himself drawn towards wherever the other boy was. And today was no exception; he realized that he was going to the river bank, and he was starting to distinguish a spot of orange on the green slope.

Uryuu had recently found out that the redhead came there when he was feeling down, and when Uryuu was sensing that the other boy was badly depressed, he would stop by, and they would have a small talk; for a depressed Kurosaki was so different from the usual Kurosaki, and it was quite contagious as well. So Uryuu would try to find out what was wrong, and he would learn various things – hearing again and more precisely how the Shinigami’s mother had died, for example – and he would try to make Ichigo forget whatever was on his mind for a moment. Because in times like this, they wouldn’t bicker anymore, and it made Uryuu feel very awkward.

And now, as he was getting closer from the boy lying down on the grass with his arms behind his head, Uryuu sensed that Kurosaki wasn’t there to brood this time. There was perhaps just a little bit of loneliness flowing through his spiritual energy. Well, now he was here, he might as well stop by.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you had already taken roots here,” Uryuu said once he was standing behind the Shinigami. He smirked inwardly as the boy started slightly, craning his neck backwards to look at the speaker; yes, he was still hopeless at sensing reiatsu.

“Tch… Are you stalking me or something?” Ichigo scowled.

“Well if you don’t want to talk, fine by me.”

“No, no it’s okay, you can stay,” Ichigo said slowly as the Uryuu was starting to turn round.

So he sat beside his friend, and they stayed silent for a moment, both boys looking at the river.

The Quincy finally decided to start a conversation and turned to the Shinigami.

“You know…” he began. But the rest of the sentence never came, as he suddenly smiled at what he was seeing.

Ichigo stared at him with a raised eyebrow. “What’s your problem?”

Instead of answering, Uryuu carefully reached forward with a soft ‘don’t move’ warning and ran his fingers over the bright orange hair.

“You had a butterfly in your hair,” Uryuu whispered, lowering his hands to allow the Shinigami to look at what they were holding.

Dumbfounded, Ichigo touched his hair where he could still feel the Quincy’s soft touch and gazed at the beautiful insect resting on the pale hands. What felt even more strange was that he realised that the archer was smiling like a child for whom Christmas had come early, holding the blue-winged creature in admiration, as if it was the first time he saw one.

“He’s beautiful,” Uryuu murmured as the butterfly flapped its wings.

Ichigo raised an eyebrow and sat up, watching Uryuu in silence.

“Just free the poor thing,” the redhead finally said after a long moment.

Uryuu started lightly. He seemed to have forgotten for some seconds the other’s presence and was now brought back to reality as he looked at the Shinigami, smile fading slowly.

“Oh. Right,” Uryuu agreed, reluctantly opening his palms.

The moment he saw he had enough space, the winged creature took off. Two pair of eyes followed him as he flew first around Uryuu’s head, then around Ichigo’s, before flying away, where he met a fellow butterfly. The boys watched as the two insects flew around each other, following the flow of the river, until they were out of sight.

Uryuu was still looking in their direction, and Ichigo shifted his gaze slightly to the left where it rested on the back of black-blue hair.

He smirked. “So you like butterflies.”

Uryuu’s head shot back towards Ichigo. “Yeah, so what?” he said, pushing up his glasses.

“Nothing,” Ichigo shrugged. “I just never saw you smile like that before.”

Uryuu’s eyes widened, but he quickly broke eye contact, adjusting his glasses again. As silence fell again, he remembered why he had stopped by and concentrated back on the reiatsu. It was still wavering a bit, but was now above the positive line.

His attention was brought back as Ichigo called him. Uryuu turned to look at the Shinigami, who was now looking in front of him, frowning deeply.

“Why is it that when I feel depressed or something, you seem to appear out of nowhere?”

Uryuu’s hand went automatically up, reaching his glasses again.

“I don’t appear out of nowhere. But I would say that all of this is because of your ridiculously high reiatsu… Which you don’t really seem to care about controlling.”

“Yeah…” Ichigo only replied; apparently too busy staring at something invisible on the other side of the riverbank to bicker back.

Another awkward silence fell between them, Uryuu feeling uneasy as the redhead still seemed to be in no mood for a fight.

“Thank you,” Ichigo then whispered, barely audible above the river flow.

Rather taken aback, the archer was about to ask why he should be thanked, when a droplet of water surprised him, landing on his glasses. He looked up and realised that the previously clear blue sky was now almost entirely hidden by clouds that didn’t seem friendly at all.

Sighing, Ishida got up. “You shouldn’t stay here, Kurosaki, it’s starting to rain.”

As no answer came from the still sitting boy, he started to walk away, understanding he was more bothering the redhead than anything else.

Once he was back on the road, however, he felt fingers closing around his wrist, stopping him from going any further.

“Ishida, wait,” he heard Ichigo say as he turned around to face him. “I…” Ichigo began. But instead of continuing, he bent down slightly and linked his lips with Ishida’s.

For the single second the kiss lasted, the Quincy was left wide-eyed. “Ku… Kurosaki! What are you…” he stuttered.

Ichigo’s free hand went up and rested on the back of Uryuu’s cheek. “I don’t know,” he sincerely answered, frown deepening. Uryuu was now at a loss for words, he didn’t know what he should do, he couldn’t move – or perhaps he didn’t want to?

What was certain was that he didn’t push Ichigo away as the boy was slowly bending down again, closing the distance between their lips, their gazes still locked. Ichigo stopped one inch from his goal, seeming to ask for permission. From this moment, Uryuu didn’t know what he was doing anymore and he made the last move to lock their lips together once more. Ichigo released his grip on the slim wrist to entangle his fingers into the ever-shining soft black hair.

This kiss lasted longer than the previous one, inexperienced mouths moving against one another, eyes closing.

But it wasn’t meant to last. Blue eyes suddenly snapped open again and Ichigo was pushed away.

“What the hell was that?” The Quincy took a step back, eyes wide, blinking as the rain was now falling heavily onto his glasses, blurring his view. He raised a hand to his mouth and quickly turned, running away and leaving the Shinigami standing in the rain.

\--------------------------

The next day would have been hilarious for someone who knew what was going on; both reiatsu were tensed, Uryuu was definitely avoiding Ichigo more than usual, and Ichigo was frowning deeper than ever, looking as if he hadn’t slept at all during the night.

Unfortunately, the only persons who knew what had happened were the aforementioned boys, and they weren’t laughing at all.

When evening came, neither of them had uttered a single word toward each other.

Uryuu was back at his flat, his mind still in a daze. He didn’t like the way he couldn’t think properly when it came to the previous day's event, so he decided to forget what happened no matter what, so that he could concentrate on what he had to do rather than on the Shinigami. Lying on the sofa, his ideas were finally getting clearer again when a dangerous energy appeared out of nowhere.

Grunting, he got up, silently cursing the Hollows who always seemed to appear at worst possible time. Well, too bad for them; because an Uryuu in a bad mood meant that they didn’t have much time left to live.

Rushing out, he followed the energy with his hirenkyaku, knowing very well that the redhead would already be there, as the monsters always appeared close to where Ichigo was. It was Ichigo’s own fault for letting a powerful reiatsu like his flowing out freely, so Uryuu should let him deal with his own mistakes, but he was still more confident in his fighting skills than in Ichigo’s. And today, he found that he was right again as he stopped in the park where a fight was already going on. The Shinigami’s reiatsu was really weird, unusually wavering between really high and really low.

Uryuu watched for a moment as Ichigo tried in vain to force his way up to slice a huge white mask. He seemed to receive more blows than usual.

“Kurosaki!” the archer suddenly shouted. In the blink of an eye, his bow was materialized and an arrow was sent towards the Hollow, cutting its right hand. From what he had seen, Ichigo had been busy dodging the left, trying to slice it, and therefore had his back turned to the other hand, which the Hollow had tried to turn to its advantage.

A shriek pierced into the silent night as the hand fell heavily to the floor. The monster was now about to jump, searching for the cause of his injury, but as soon as one of its feet left the ground, a dozen arrows pierced through its bony mask.

Panting, Ichigo looked up at the vanishing body, planting Zangetsu into the ground to support himself, and then turned to the Quincy who had appeared on his right.

“What do you think you were doing?” the annoyed Uryuu asked.

Ichigo just looked back at him. “Well, glad you had my back, then,” he finally shrugged.

Uryuu blinked, unable to retort anything, and watched the other boy ‘sheathing’ his Zanpakutou onto his back. When Ichigo finally started to walk away, Uryuu frowned and decided to follow him, at least until they would reach his area.

All the way, Uryuu kept wondering about Ichigo’s reiatsu unusual fluctuations, which had become more considerable. Suddenly, the energy went extremely high, surprising the archer, before dropping instantly until nearly vanishing. Ichigo stopped walking, resting a hand on his head.

“Kurosaki?” Ishida tried, walking up to the boy.

“My… head is spinning…” Ichigo closed his eyes, trying to steady his vision.

“Are you injured?”

“Don' think so…” he answered weakly, then frowned, looking down. “My legs are… shaking…”

Uryuu was about to ask him something when Ichigo reached out a hand onto his shoulder, gripping tightly.

“Kuro–” Uryuu started, but he stopped as the redhead stumbled forward onto him. Cursing under his breath, Uryuu caught Ichigo around the shoulders before he could fall any further.

“Kurosaki, are you okay?” he called. No answer; just a halting breathing. “You moron…” he sighed.

He put one of Ichigo’s arms around his shoulders and decided to take the boy to his apartment. 

Once there – not without any trouble; Kurosaki was quite heavy, even more so when you had to walk up a flight of stairs with his dead weight on your back – Uryuu laid the Shinigami onto his own bed. Reaching a hand to his forehead, he confirmed the fact that the redhead was indeed ill.

Uryuu went to the bathroom and came back to place a hot towel on Ichigo’s forehead. He examined him for a moment, but it seemed like his wounds weren’t deep. So he decided to let the boy sleep for the moment and got out of the bedroom after having covered him properly.

Having changed into clean clothes, he started to do his homework, sometimes checking on Ichigo’s still faint reiatsu.

Finally, a good hour later, a heavy sound followed by shuffling noises could be heard from the little room. Uryuu got up to see if Ichigo was alright and if he hadn’t fallen from the bed, but the latter was already coming out the room.

“Kurosaki, what are you doing? You’re sick, you should rest,” he exclaimed as he approached the boy who was resting against the wall.

“Ah… Sorry… I have to go… It’s Yuzu’s birthday… We planned on going out… I don’t want her to worry or anything…”

“Well, if you don’t want her to worry, you probably shouldn’t show her your face right now.”

Ichigo smiled faintly. “Yeah… I’ll raid the clinic before talking to her…”

Uryuu closed his eyes. “Fine, fine. Go and die by yourself on the road, I won’t be there this time.”

Ichigo’s smile widened slightly and he handed the towel to the Quincy. “Sorry… Thank you for everything.” His hand lingered a bit more than necessary into Uryuu’s hand where he had dropped the towel, and eventually, he walked away and out of the flat.

Uryuu was back at his homework when he heard an eerie muffled sound somewhere inside his house. It was like nothing he had already heard, like something… rattling on the ground. He got up and tried to locate the sound. From the bedroom?

When he entered the room, however, the noise stopped. He frowned. What could it have been? As he inspected the room, he noticed nothing unusual, apart from the blood-stained covers.

He was about to return to the kitchen when the noise started again from behind him. He turned sharply. A flickering light was coming from under his bed. He bent and saw the object, moving slightly on the floor, thus making the noise: a mobile phone? Oh, probably Ichigo’s. So _that_ was what had made the heavy sound earlier, probably by falling down from the bed.

As he took the phone in his hands, ‘Old man’ was written on the screen. Ichigo’s dad? Should he answer? Hadn’t Ichigo reached his house?

He pressed the green button. “Hello?”

“HAHA! I got you, you thie–” Silence for a second. “Who’s that?”

“Erm… Ishida… Ishida Uryuu. But I didn’t…”

“OOOOH! Uryuu!” the man cut him off. “You scared me for a moment! You’ve got exactly the same voice as your father, you know!”

“How do you–”

“Anyway! I’m relieved to know my son’s phone is in good hands! He might have forgotten it at your flat, didn’t he?” the man chuckled.

“Oh, is he back?” Uryuu asked, slightly relieved.

“Yes, yes, of course! He collapsed in the clinic, though! Oh, Uryuu, can I ask you something?”

“Er… Yes, of course.”

“Well, Ichigo probably already told you, but it’s Yuzu’s birthday today and we are about to go out, but she doesn’t want to leave Ichigo alone in his state! Would you mind coming here to watch over him and keep him company?”

“Er… Sure.”

“Thank you, Uryuu! I knew I could count on you! We'll leave the door open, then! We'll be gone by the time you get here! Bye~!”

Uryuu blinked, eyes wide, and pressed the red button.

When he arrived at the house, the door was indeed unlocked, and nobody was there. Ichigo’s father really was trusting.

He followed the very feeble reiatsu upstairs and knocked softly on the door marked by the number 15. When no answer came, he cracked it open and caught a glimpse of orange hair in the bed, the rest apparently hidden under the covers. Ichigo seemed fast asleep, but his breathing was ragged.

Uryuu sighed, placed the desk chair beside the bed and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

 

The Quincy slowly opened his eyes as he sensed something touching his hair. Upon remembering where he was, he quickly sat back, blinking. In front of him, Ichigo was now sitting with his back resting against the wall, smiling warmly at him. Uryuu sensed his cheeks warming slightly at the unusual feature and adjusted his glasses.

“Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I feel better, now… I think…” Ichigo answered quite weakly. “What are you doing here?”

Uryuu looked away. “You forgot your mobile at my apartment, so your dad called and he asked me to look after you while they were out.”

“Oh.” The redhead leant his head against the wall behind him. They both stayed silent for a moment.

“Kurosaki?”

“Mh?”

“How long did you stay in the rain after…” The archer finally dared to bring the subject of ‘yesterday’ on. He still wasn’t looking at the Shinigami, but he could see that Ichigo was now looking at him. “I told you you would get sick if you stayed there too long,” he decided to add.

Ichigo closed his eyes again. “I stayed long enough to sort some things out.”

“What things?”

Ichigo smiled, although a bit sadly. “Do you really want to know?”

“Why not?”

The Shinigami opened his eyes and beckoned for Uryuu to approach, as if he was about to reveal him a secret.

“I like you,” he whispered in Uryuu’s ear.

Uryuu’s eyes widened impossibly. “What?”

Ichigo pulled away and smirked at the boy. “What, you want me to repeat?”

“I… No… I… But… I’m a b–”

“You’re a boy, yes, I'm awar, thank you.” As Ishida still looked slightly shocked, he continued, “Oh, come on, Ishida! I know you kinda like me too… I mean… You kissed me!”

“What? _You_ kissed me!”

“But you liked it!”

The Quincy didn’t answer anything. He was lost. Yes, he had liked it. But it was all _so_ _wrong_.

And a second later, there were lips covering his own. Uryuu quickly pushed Ichigo away with both hands.

“Kurosaki! Stop it.”

Ichigo looked slightly hurt, and Uryuu averted his gaze, awkward. “I… don’t want to catch your cold.”

Ichigo then smiled as broadly as his tiredness allowed him to and reached up to take the hands on his shoulders. He brought one of the pale palms to his lips and kissed it.

Uryuu blushed. He was about to snatch his hands away when Ichigo closed his eyes and fell slowly forward. Realising that he had fallen asleep, Uryuu caught him, surprised. He rolled his eyes with a small smile as the hands that were previously holding his fell down on the bed with a small thud.

Getting up, Uryuu carefully tried to lay the teenager back in the bed under the heavy covers, eliciting a few grunts from the feverish redhead. He stopped after neatly covering Ichigo to the ears and looked thoughtfully at him, frowning. What was he to do now? Should he take Ichigo seriously?

He didn’t have a lot of time to ponder these things as he heard loud voices outside the house. When the door opened downstairs, he straightened up, quickly moving his hand away from where it had been unconsciously stroking the orange hair. Uryuu turned to the bedroom door in time to see it being kicked open by a dark-haired man, followed by two little girls.

“Uryuu-kun! I’m so glad to see you here!”

Before he could even blink his eyes, Uryuu was held in a tight embrace by Kurosaki senior.

“You’ve grown up a lot, you know!” the man continued in his over-enthusiastic voice, now holding the taken aback Uryuu firmly by the shoulders at arms length. “You’ll be a beautiful man, just like your father!”

Isshin patted Uryuu on the cheeks, the boy now at a loss of words. The eccentric man was about to turn to his sleeping son and shout in happiness, but he was kicked hard in the shin by the dark-haired girl. Karin, Uryuu guessed, eyes still wide at the sudden agitation.

“Shut up, goat chin, can’t you see he’s asleep?” Karin growled at the crouched man faking tears.

“Ah~! Uryuu… My daughter is so mean to me!”

“Dad, please…” came another voice, smaller, less confident and wore worried. Everyone turned to the blonde girl kneeling beside Ichigo’s bed. “Karin is right, Ichigo is sick, he needs to rest…”

Isshin pouted even more but said nothing, looking pleadingly at the Quincy.

“Uryuu…” was the whimper that broke the silence. All heads turned to the redhead moaning in his agitated dream.

Uryuu cleared his throat. “Well, I guess I’ll be going, then.” He adjusted his glasses, oblivious to the wide grin on Ichigo’s father’s face. “Thank you, Mr Kurosaki, Karin, Yuzu. Good night.” He bowed and got out of the bedroom.

There was another loud exclamation as he descended the stairs towards the front door.

“Ryuuken~! What a polite boy you have, you lucky bastard! Nothing like my rascal of a son! We should exch– OUCH! Karin~!”

“I said shut up, pathetic old man, go to bed.”

Uryuu quickly got out of the house. Ryuuken? So the man did indeed know his father; but calling him by his first name?

He stopped in his tracks as he sensed for a second an abnormal edge in Ichigo’s father’s energy. His eyes widened slightly, and a flick of his wrist produced two red ribbons.

“Well, now that explains both his personnality and his power,” he whispered, looking up at the light coming from Ichigo’s window.

\--------------------------

Uryuu’s arm fell back against his side, bow disappearing at the same time as the monster in front of him. It had taken very little time for him to get rid of the masked beast tonight. It was quite good to fight alone again, not having to bother about his partner’s ‘slicing before thinking’ stupidities.

But right now, he must admit, he was a bit worried for that same boy. Three days had now passed since he had last seen the loud redhead, and he had been sick, with a frightening low reiatsu. Today, he had been able to sense the energy without concentrating too much, so it must mean that Ichigo was recovering, but he hadn’t shown up at school. And in a way, Uryuu was also slightly glad about it. Because if Kurosaki had come back to school, Uryuu wouldn’t have known how to react; well, at least, he could have avoided him until he knew how to react.

“ _I like you.”_

He remembered all too well the whispered words; and the tightening in his chest as he had heard them. What was wrong with him? Why hadn’t he rejected Ichigo? But more importantly, why was he believing him? Surely it had only been the fever speaking; as for that day in the rain, Ichigo was probably already a bit sick. So why was it affecting him that much? Yes, he couldn’t deny that he had always been kind of affected by the redhead since the first time he had seen – and sensed – him. He had progressively truly despised the boy for not paying attention to him. But after talking to him for the first time and fighting him, he couldn’t hate him anymore. Of course, Ichigo was still annoying, but he had, in a sense, relieved him. He had opened Uryuu eyes. Ichigo had had the same speech his grandfather had. And he had proposed an alliance. An alliance between a Shinigami and a Quincy. All that his grandfather had dreamt of. Ishida had then understood how extraordinary a man Kurosaki Ichigo was. And he had saved the life of this extraordinary man.

With a resigned sigh, Uryuu decided that he could as well go and see how the boy was doing.

As he turned a corner, however, he came face to face with the object of his thoughts.

“Yo, Ishida!” Ichigo greeted when he recovered from the surprise.

Uryuu just frowned back. “Kurosaki, what are you doing here? You shouldn’t be outside.”

“Whatever,” the Shinigami scowled. “My father was just pissing me off. I needed some peace.”

“I see.” Yes, now he had met the man, he definitely understood why Ichigo would need some quiet, which he sure couldn’t get with his over-enthusiastic father around. “Oh, now that you talk about him,” Uryuu remembered, “I understand now why you have so much spiritual pressure.”

He was met with Ichigo’s most dumb face. “Huh?”

Uryuu pushed his glasses up his nose to avoid having to roll his eyes. “I mean, you never told me your father was a Shinigami.”

“What… the fuck are you talking about?” Was it possible that he actually didn’t know? “Did you catch a cold too?”

“Kurosaki! I am serious. I just sensed something weird for one second in his energy, and then I saw _that_.” He conjured a red ribbon in his right hand.

“That doesn’t mean anything; it could as well be mine.”

“Kurosaki, are you so dense that you can’t even recognize your own reiraku?” the Quincy exclaimed, losing his patience. Another red thread appeared in his left hand, which he brought closer to its owner’s face. “ _This_ is yours.”

Ichigo’s eyes widened, looking between his own reiraku and the other one. He could definitely sense that the one in the left hand was his own, but the one in the right hand…

“It’s… impossible,” he finally whispered. “Dad, a Shinigami?” He shook his head. “No way!”

“And for what I can say, to be able to hide his reiatsu like that, he’s either a very powerful one, or he has lost his powers.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me. This is a nightmare, right? You’re just haunting me in my dreams.”

Uryuu just stared at him. He considered pinching the Shinigami to prove him that he was awake, but he barely had the time to stifle a yelp as he was yanked forward into the arms of the boy. His lips were captured in a fierce kiss.

“Kurosaki! This is serious!” he yelled angrily, pushing Ichigo away.

Ichigo grinned sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck. “So this definitely isn’t a dream, I guess.”

“Of course it isn’t! Why–”

“But it’s still hard to believe,” Ichigo cut off, face becoming serious again. “Why didn’t he tell me? I mean, if he really is a Shinigami, he must know I am one too.”

“He must have his reasons. I think you shouldn’t tell him you know his secret.”

Ichigo raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh… Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he finally agreed.

An awkward silence settled, eventually broken by a frowning Ishida. “And… er… I think he knows Ryuuken.”

“Ryuuken? Your _father_?”

Uryuu nods, explaining to his friend all the references to the man Isshin had made. “Ryuuken, that bastard… Telling me not to associate with a Shinigami whereas he…” he trailed off, fisting his hands.

Ichigo didn’t know what to do or say, remembering all too well the deal Ishida had been forced to agree with in order to get his Quincy powers back.

“Well, he must have his reasons.”

Uryuu’s head shot up as his own words were repeated. Ichigo smiled softly at him and he quickly looked away.

“Er… maybe we should go somewhere else?”

Realising that they were still standing in the street, Uryuu nodded. And so they walked, and he was led to a place he knew very well now. One could call it the place of their first kiss; but Uryuu refused to acknowledge this, so it was just Ichigo’s favourite spot.

They sat on the grass, as they had done quite a few times before; and again, silence surrounded them. Uryuu just didn’t know what he could find interesting enough to talk about, but Ichigo seemed pensive.

“Ishida? Er… You know, about last time, back home… I meant it. I mean… it wasn’t because of the fever or anything.”

Uryuu’s breath caught in his throat, and he couldn’t bring himself to look at the boy.

“Or rather,” Ichigo continued with a small awkward laugh, “it must have been thanks to the fever that I had the guts to kiss you a few days ago. But yeah, I meant it. I like it when you’re around, I like it when we fight together; heh, I even like when we fight against each other.” He finally turned to look at the Quincy. “So, yeah, I like you.”

There it was again. The tightening in Uryuu’s chest was growing deeper. What was he to do now? He couldn’t fool himself any longer, could he? Ichigo couldn’t have been much clearer. But still, Uryuu doubted. Why would Ichigo choose him? It was such an improbable scenario; and yet, a scenario he didn’t quite mind.

He closed his eyes. “You know, Kurosaki, I also like fighting against you.” Blue eyes slowly opened again, his thoughts having stopped spinning madly in his head, and looked back at warm chocolate brown ones.

Ichigo, probably upon registering that it was the closest thing to a confession he would get from Uryuu, smiled in relief, frown disappearing. He leaned closer to Uryuu, laying his hand in the grass right behind the boy to hold himself up. Uryuu also leaned in, and their lips were locked for the third time that week. Both boys wanted to sigh at the sensation; it was _so much_ different than the two previous ones.

Ichigo reached up with his other hand and rested it against the back of Uryuu’s cheek. They deepened the kiss, tongues shyly brushing against each other at first, then eagerly dancing together, earning light moans from their owners.

Uryuu felt a soft pressure, silently asking him to lean down on the grass. They only broke the kiss once they were both lying on their side. Panting slightly, they looked at each other. Uryuu risked a small smile, which was immediately answered by a wide grin.

Ichigo then shifted a little, lying on his back, and pulled Uryuu with him, pillowing his head on his arm. The Shinigami was about to say something when a butterfly landed on his nose, making him gasp and squint.

Uryuu laughed quietly, reaching to take the insect in his hands. This one was even more beautiful than the first one, with three shades of blue and some spots of orange. Before they could say anything, two more butterflies joined the first one in the pale hands. One was mainly red, the other pale blue. Some seconds later, they all took off again together, flying around each other frenzily.

“Well, Kurosaki, it seems like you attract butterflies.”


End file.
